Spoofy Randomness

Character: Stretch Longfellow

An American teacher in Egypt chronicling his experiences in comic form.

  • Home Sweet Home

    Home Sweet Home

    Apologies to whomever from the school who picked me up at the airport; I have no idea who you were.  I was kinda out of it.  But yeah, this was my reaction to my apartment.  It was a bit of an overexaggeration, but I was expecting a quite small one-bedroom apartment and this place is not much smaller than the first floor of my old house, and it’s the smallest apartment in the building. So yeah, bigger than I expected. Fancy entrances are also a thing here. I think that’s pretty awesome. It shows that the owners have pride in the building and whatnot.

    Sherif makes his first appearance! I won’t say too much more about him because I know he’s going to show up later, but he gets awesome points for showing me around the next day even when I was still coming off of the panic episode and was not feeling well at all.

    And yeah, no box springs, so when I first sat on the bed there was an audible THUD. I did wind up sleeping on the couch the first few nights, but that was more because there was air flow in the living room than the bed itself. Once I bought a fan, I can sleep surprisingly well on that bed despite its solidness.

    I meant to invert Panel 2; for some reason when I was drawing it I was convinced I had the side of the car and road correct. NOPE. And then I forgot to invert it. Although to be fair, the van driving on the wrong side of the road isn’t too unrealistic… The black and yellow car is a taxi; they are VERY noticeable!

  • Off I Go!

    Off I Go!

    Hey look, we’re almost to comics actually in Egypt! Those will FINALLY start next week.

    In the days leading up to my departure, I naturally tried to cram in as much time with friends and family as I could.  FYI, in Panel 1, we’re playing the Widow’s Walk expansion of Betrayal at House on the Hill.  You get a random scenario each time you play.  It’s pretty awesome, and often ridiculous.  That same day, I also wound up trying to assemble all the monsters to accurately put on the Monster Mash.  And yes, Joshua is who Jorocks was originally modeled after (although I took steps to separate the two, including giving Jorocks a beard…which then Joshua promptly grew).

    Meagan also gets all the awesome points (as usual).  I am a decent packer, but she spent a significant chunk of her life when she worked for ΑΦΩ traveling and is thus a WHIZ at packing, and she did it willingly!  This help was greatly appreciated!

    Now, a bit of REAL TALK. This comic was scripted before I left, and reality hit a lot harder than this comic shows.  If you are a teacher looking to teach abroad (or really, anyone looking to move far away), I highly recommend talking to your doctor about getting some anti-anxiety medicine before you leave.  I did not, and didn’t think anything of it as I was surprisingly calm leading into my departure.  And then I was sitting in the airport in Istanbul and unexpectedly had a full-blown panic attack, to the point where I needed medical attention. (Thankfully, I had an 8 hour layover, so I had the two and a half hours to spare for that without missing my flight.)  I was still coming off of that when I got to my apartment in Egypt, and it turns out that one of the only medicines you CAN’T buy over the counter is most anti-anxiety meds.  Luckily, after a couple tries and some help, I was able to get some medicine, and after a few days the anxiety wore off and I haven’t had any problems since (and no more meds needed!).  But yeah, talking to your doctor about some preventative medicine is a good idea.

    On a lighter note, there’s a Firefly reference hidden in the comic somewhere.

    Last Saturday’s sketchbook was the last I have queued up, but if you want to see more on a regular basis, don’t forget to subscribe to Patreon! If I can raise $20/month, you will get weekly sketchbooks!

  • Curse the British Influence

    Curse the British Influence

    I really don’t have anything against Britain itself, but I can’t stand mineral water and I kept accidentally drinking it when I did my study abroad in Wales.  And yes, this probably more of a European influence than specifically Britain, but Britain speaks English, so therefore I blame them for a lot of things here.  Luckily, once I arrived I discovered that they had left regular bottled water, not mineral water. Phew!

    Drinking bottled water has been a change for me.  I never was big on it to begin with (a large part being the cost in the States), but when I went to Japan for the Fulbright Japan-U.S. Teacher Exchange Program for Education of Sustainable Development (which really needs a shorter name), a lot of the teachers on that trip had pledged to refuse water bottles entirely, and that rubbed off on me.  But here, DON’T DRINK THE TAP WATER.  So bottled water it is.  Oh well.

    Cats are hard to draw.  (And in case you were wondering, my sister is taking care of Gidget while I’m abroad.)

  • Misconceptions Part 2

    Misconceptions Part 2

    Before I go off on a soapbox moment, this is the first NoaC comic I made in color.  I decided to go to color for various reasons, one of which being I am actually producing comics faster than I expected! Yay!  I do plan on coloring the earlier comics, so if you are from the future and wonder what I’m talking about because they’re all in color, that’s why.  (Also, I just realized that this comic’s initials are the same as the National Order of the Arrow Conference, which makes me happy.)

    And now, SOAPBOX.  Like I say in the comic, a lot of the misconception about where I am was just not being aware of what Egypt is actually like, but I did come across a few people who were pretty overtly racist about the region.  I tried to use it as a chance to educate, which got through to some people, but some were pretty adamant in their ideas and seemed to think that they have more expertise in the area than people who had been there.  That was frustrating, but what was even more frustrating was what Meagan had to (and still does) put up with.  Again, a lot of it was genuine curiosity and concern, but some of it was outright RUDE.  I frequently had people try to convince me that Meagan needed to quit her job to come with me even after I explained that she has her own career she is working on, and this shocked more people than I care to admit (it’s the 21st century, come on!).  I dodged most of it though, as people were more interested in what I would be doing in Egypt.  Meagan got an almost daily deluge of personal questions about our relationship, including the ones shown above.  I expect some insensitive questions coming from my students, but hers were coming from grown adults.  Again, yay for you for being concerned and light questions are fine (although the monotony of answering the questions got old real quick) and if you’re a close friend you can get more personal, but when is it EVER appropriate to ask some of those questions? And the ridiculously high number of people who asked “have we talked about it?”  What, you think we’re just gonna ignore the fact that I’m moving 6000 miles away?  The other thing that drove both of us crazy is how Meagan basically got treated as an extension of myself instead of her own person.  Even now, when people greet Meagan, they’re always asking about how I’m doing (many of which have never met me) and don’t ask about other things in her awesome life.  I do think most of these people really do mean well, but…yeesh.

    tl;dr Think before you speak and mind your own business.

  • Misconceptions

    Misconceptions

    After my students got over the whole “going to Egypt” and “wait, so you’re not going to be here forever?”, this is pretty much what happened.  Each one of those questions actually happened in some form, and not all from students.  It made me want to write up a sheet of “yes, I’m going to Egypt and here are the answers to your questions” to hand out.

    I couldn’t resist drawing Percy on my whiteboard there.  I do draw my characters on the board every once in a while. Also, note to self as I went back and colored comics once I got here (this was made before I left), NEVER put a whiteboard as a background…  I probably could have spiced up that background a little more, but still…

    Adjusted the font size to be a little smaller. I think I like it better. I also had decided not to make a comic showing me actually getting the job (it was pretty obvious I did, given this comic, and there wasn’t really much to say), but I knew as soon as I moved past the previous comic, someone would comment about it.

    Getting settled here in Alex. Been working on preparing for the school year. School starts in less than a week!

    Don’t forget to subscribe to Patreon!

  • To Help Or Not To Help?

    To Help Or Not To Help?

    This is pretty much how that conversation went.  I had mentioned to Meagan about wanting to teach abroad at some point in my life, but actually having the interview took it from dream to reality.  And poor Meagan got caught between her job as a career coach and encouraging people to pursue their dreams and realizing that pursuing said dream means her life just got harder.

    But in the end, she did help me, especially with coming up with questions to ask.  🙂  I actually had four interviews that week; two were also at a school system in China, and I was offered that job but wanted to go to a completely different part of the world (I had spent time in Japan in 2014).  I also had applied to teach in the UAE, but took this job before I completed the interview process there.

    It’s weird, but I’m actually stressing more about having to interview to get a job when I come back than I did about these interviews…

    Just a reminder that I would love your support on Patreon!

    Edit: Color added 4 Sept 2017

  • Total Eclipse of the Art

    Total Eclipse of the Art

    AND WE ARE OFF ON A NEW COMIC SERIES!

    Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first of the newest selection of the Spoofy Randomness comic brand, Not on a Camel! This will be a series inspired by Mary Cagle’s Let’s Speak English, as I head over to Egypt to serve as the only American teacher at Alexandria International Academy, where I will teach 7-9 science and ICT and will be taught many things!

    As for this comic, I’ve been sitting on the idea since shortly after I decided to make a comic chronicling my adventures.  Lots of people had asked me “are you going to do a blog, vlog, etc about your trip” (it’s always a “trip”, not a “life”) and I realized that this would be a very me way to do it.  Em’s line about it being a dark day when I come back to comics is somewhat true; when I finished On the Origin of Santa Claus, I was pretty burnt out on comic making and didn’t ever see a time when I would come back to it. But fast forward almost three years (the 31st of this month will mark eight years since I started!), and I’m ready to give it another go.  When I realized the comic would start right around the eclipse, I couldn’t resist this strip.  (The comic will normally update Wednesdays starting next week, but will be posted Mondays for Patreon subscribers!)

    I did post this comic right when the eclipse passed over Johnson-Brock.  It was not a manual update, of course; I was busy in my last role as a science teacher there.  I promised that I would help get the eclipse program going so that the new teachers wouldn’t have to worry about it.  Em and Jason came out all the way from North Carolina to see the eclipse (and all us Nebraska people too, of course) and volunteered to help me out at J-B.  Also, a shoutout to Kayla and Ross, Woody and Laura, and everyone else who volunteered their time to make that event happen!

    I leave for Egypt on Wednesday! Here goes!

    Edit 4 Sept 2017: Added color

  • Stop Day: LARP

    Stop Day: LARP

    So way back in spring 2010, Doane College held their annual Stop Day.  Classes are called off for a day and StuCo hosted all sorts of sorting events.  Many people also use this day as another excuse to get drunk.  However, in my group of friends, I’m probably the most athletic one (and that isn’t saying much) and we don’t drink, so…  We decided to make a LARP.  I filmed it with the idea that I would turn it into a movie.  Five and a half years later, I finally did.

    I will be premiering this movie today at 4 PM CDT at http://www.youtube.com/user/StretchLongfellow/live and then will post it on YouTube.  Come by and find out why I didn’t work on Spoofy Randomness as much as I thought I would last summer!

  • Dumb Pokémon Comics: How to Make Comics

    Dumb Pokémon Comics: How to Make Comics

    And the exciting(?) climax to my saga at Dumb Pokémon Comics!

    I had a blast drawing Louis and Pi’s comic, and I enjoyed Louis’s contributions to my own comic.

    Anyway, the comic commentary. That’s my full team, a Castform, Regigigas, shiny Linoone (yes, I actually have one in-game), and of course, Togetic.  When I was asked what type of Gym Leader I would be, I figured I would go for Normal, as there’s a lot of bizarre and interesting strategies with that type.

    These last two comics were quickly sketched before I left for St. Paul Tuesday night and edited in my hotel, complete with iffy Internet. Somehow, miracles of miracles, I managed to produce 5 comics for one week, even with being on the road. Spoofy Randomness readers, this is not, I repeat, NOT a precedent to go by!

    You can tell that this strip is a bit dated, as I have now been around for over four years and have built up a small fanbase that I hope will continue to grow. (You guys are awesome, by the way.)  Alas, DPC never made it past 40 comics, but maybe if you all go over and read Louis and Pi’s stuff they’ll make a few more!

    Just for fun: every Stretch cameo in DPC:

    I went to White Castle (and did not understand the hype)

    Not me, but my Togetic

    More cupcakes for Stretch

    Freaking Zubats (and Togetic evolved!)

    As my roommate put it, I was THE bad influence when it came to Pokémon

    Now for epic sugar crash.

  • Dumb Pokémon Comics: Cupcakes

    Dumb Pokémon Comics: Cupcakes

    Part four of my saga over at Dumb Pokémon Comics!

    Yeah, so that’s why my Togetic hits me with cupcakes…

    Also, random non-canon theory that could scientifically work for the win?

    Anyway, that’s my lovely wife Laura in Panels 5 and 6 (although at the time of drawing this, I was just getting ready to propose to her). Laura did appear in a previous DPC comic with her Oddish.